


Revenge is sweeter bite-sized

by kahlen369



Category: Honey I Shrunk the Kids (1989), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Backstory, Comedy, Crack, Crack Crossover, Emma vs. Ants, Established Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan, Established Relationship, F/F, Gen, Magic, POV Emma, Tiny!Emma, Very Little Crossover, bear claws, for Honey I Shrunk The Kids, shrink ray, tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25762789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kahlen369/pseuds/kahlen369
Summary: The latest Disney film to drop by Storybrooke is the seminal classic,Honey, I Shrunk The Kids.Guess who its first victim is? Who else, but poor Emma Swan, who was so distracted by her bear claw, she didn't notice the strange man with a shrink ray until it was too late, and she was turned less than an inch tall, forced to battle against a horde of creepy crawlies now bigger than her.It's quite a Hero's Journey to reach Regina, who is certainly less than sympathetic and all too eager to tease Emma about her bad luck with the latest villain in town.-Or: It's just another day, another magical villain causing havoc in Storybrooke.
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan
Comments: 35
Kudos: 99
Collections: Swan Queen Supernova V: Forever Starstruck





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mippippippi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mippippippi/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Revenge is sweeter bite sized [ Protostar Art ]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26195722) by [mippippippi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mippippippi/pseuds/mippippippi). 



> The inspiration is pretty obvious here, based on the tags and the art, haha. Honey, I Shrunk The Kids was one of my favorite childhood movies. Sorry for making the dad the villain in this (but well, to be fair, the whole money was his fault so I guess he was always sort of the "villain"). Anyway, this is mostly just some cracky fluff xD Enjoy <3
> 
> Thank you to the artist for creating the piece that inspired this! Haha, I pretty instantly had the idea as soon as I saw it <3

It was a perfectly ordinary Thursday morning, and Emma Swan was walking down Main Street with a bear claw in hand. Distracted by her delicious snack, she did not notice the stranger with the even stranger gun in her hand until it was too late. 

In her defense, the dude did not look dangerous. In fact, he just looked like your normal average dorky suburban dad, complete with the glasses. That probably should’ve been her first clue. 

When was normal  _ ever _ a part of Storybrooke? 

In the end, there was exactly a second for her to realize something was wrong, as a bright flash of light enveloped her, and then, well…

An instant later, Emma became an ant-sized version of herself, as the gun turned out to be a  _ shrink ray, _ of all things.

Emma was rather dumbfounded by this development understandably, though probably not anywhere near as much as she would’ve before she’d come to Storybrooke and realized fairy tales were real and she was technically sort of one of them. 

At this point, Emma was just sort of pissed she didn’t get to enjoy her bearclaw before shit went down as usual. She spared a forlorn glance at the suddenly gigantic bear claw that had dropped to the dirty ground next to her.

_ Hmm… wait. _ Maybe this wasn’t so bad after all? Just as she was contemplating jumping right into the bear claw and eating it top to down—she could just stop a little before she hit the dirty ground and it would be fine, probably—the stranger who had cursed her to this fate spoke up. 

_ Oh, right. _ It was time for the villainous monologue. 

With a long-suffering sigh that had become common to her ever since she found out her mother was Snow White, Emma looked up at the gigantic man, who had bent down a bit to better deliver his no doubt well-practiced revenge speech. That was thoughtful of them, at least. 

Actually, up close, he looked kind of familiar, which made sense. No doubt this was some character from yet another Disney movie, whose story was yet again, not faithfully adapted at all, and they’d get the full backstory at some point. 

Emma refocused her attention just in time for the somehow familiar stranger giving her the usual cliche villain smile, as he made the usual villainous speech, which was all rather ineffective considering his dorky appearance, “Tell the Evil Queen that she’s next,  _ Sheriff _ . If you manage to get that far, that is.”

Of course it was yet another villain with some kind of personal connection to them.  _ Great _ , Emma thought sarcastically. At this point, she was honestly unsurprised by the development. One of these days, she should probably sit the whole tangled family tree of theirs down and have them write out a list of people they’d possibly wronged over the years. It would save them a lot of time and effort. 

Before Emma could even open her mouth to reply to this latest villain—with what was going to be a truly devastatingly snarky remark—the man turned on her heel and walked away.  _ Well, that was just rude _ , Emma thought indignantly, before shaking her head. 

-

Just another day in Storybrooke, honestly. 

-

Going from a perfectly respectable 5’5” (it was taller than Regina, after all, which was very important when kissing), to about an  _ inch _ tall was  _ not _ a pleasant experience. Was this karma for all the height-based insults Emma may or may not have slung about in the past? Because even so, it was just  _ messed up _ . Karma totally owed her one for this. 

Needless to say, possible food related opportunities aside, Emma’s new size presented more cons than pros, as she quickly discovered. See, the thing about delicious bear claws out in the open ground? 

Emma was not the only one who wanted a bite out of that buttery goodness. So, it did not take long for her to start screaming in panic as she found herself suddenly tiny and in danger from the insect population of Storybrooke. 

In what seemed like moments, she was surrounded by a growing line of rather scary looking ants, who were getting closer to the pastry, and thus, to  _ her _ . Why did this have to happen outside? Why were these villainous revenge plots always so inconvenient? 

Emma only had a spare moment to complain about her lot in life, unfortunately, because the ants were very shockingly fast. One moment, they were locked in a staring contest that was seriously creeping her out because insect eyes were  _ not _ meant to be seen by human ones up close like this—and in the next, they were  _ moving _ . 

_ Oh, shit.  _ Emma quickly backed away, wondering if it would be smarter to turn around and start running. But you weren’t supposed to show them your back, right? Then again, that was bears or something, not  _ ants _ . What exactly was the protocol for handling hostile ants? Was this them displaying their dominance or something?

In this moment, Emma deeply regretted not watching more of the boring nature shows Henry somehow enjoyed (she blamed Regina—truly, he made an excellent case for nurture versus nature). Maybe if she had, she’d have more of an idea what to do now that she was somehow part of it.

Well, it wasn’t like she needed any details to understand the gist of it. 

Namely, that she was seriously fucked.

-

_ Fuckfuckfuck. _

The all too loud sound of insect wings beating was almost enough to drown out the litany of curses running through her head, while her body was running even faster. 

At some point during her inner monologue, Emma’s baser instincts had kicked into gear, and feeling like a cavewoman faced with a woolly mammoth, she’d stopped thinking so much about nature shows and just started running for her life. 

Unfortunately, this was not going so well. Because, it turned out her flight instincts were nothing compared to the crazy beast chasing her. 

Flying ants were apparently a thing that existed, and they were fucking  _ scary _ . 

Why did Emma have to discover this horrible fact when she was an inch tall and not her usual 5’6”, when she was perfectly capable of handling the little monsters?  _ Oh, yeah, because Fate hated her.  _

_ Or maybe Fate just wanted her to get some exercise _ , she thought, a little hysterically. Emma hadn’t run this much or this hard in ages, and boy, was it showing. It was honestly a little pathetic how much she was straining right now.  _ Shit, she was out of shape, wasn’t she?  _

The longer she ran, the more exhausted she got. It was a simple and obvious equation, one that meant, eventually, she was going to run out of energy to run and get caught. 

This was how Emma Swan was going to die.  _ Eaten by ants. _

It made for a truly terrible epitaph. Emma was torn between the urge to scream, cry and laugh. Clearly driven insane by exhaustion, she actually halfway managed to make a sound that encompassed all three.

Needless to say, the result was horrifying to hear, so much so, the ants chasing her actually seemed to freeze at it. Emma would’ve been insulted if she wasn’t so relieved. Unfortunately, the relief was pretty short-lived.

Letting her guard down was a horrible mistake, as was looking behind her to check the suddenly frozen ants, because the moment she did, she  _ tripped _ . 

Landing face first into the cold hard ground, her entire being exploded in pain. A barely coherent series of curses ran through her mind, as she struggled to get up again. Yes, she had a pretty high pain threshold, but boy this did hurt like a bitch. Unfortunately, she did not have the time to be lying prone on the ground while she screamed in pain.

Emma managed to glance back and saw that her untimely accident had allowed the ants to catch up to her.  _ Oh fuck _ , she thought despairingly.  _ Was this really going to be the end, after all?  _

Her arms were raised defensively, a last ditch instinct as she closed her eyes. Just in time too. A rush of bright light escaped from her hands and hit the insect.

_ Magic _ .

Oh, right. That was also a thing that existed, and which she possessed.  _ Emma was a fucking idiot _ , as Regina liked to say, minus the swearing bit. For once, Emma herself agreed with the sentiment.

Now that she remembered that she had magic, she used it to fight off the rest of the ant army, who were no match for her.

“Yeah, you run away!” Emma yelled victoriously. 

Alone and relatively safe, she was able to think again. First, she mourned the loss of her poor bear claw. Maybe she could summon it to her? Though that might end with her getting squashed beneath it. That sounded about as pleasant as by ants. 

Focus, she reminded herself. She had bigger issues right now. Like how to get bigger again. Wait. Couldn’t she just magic herself back to her regular size?

Picturing what she wanted to do as best as she could, Emma closed her eyes and summoned her magic. When she opened her eyes hopefully, however, she found that nothing had changed. 

Yeah, she couldn’t just magic herself back to normal, it turned out. 

Probably because Emma had no idea what spell that would even involve. None of her “visualization” was helping, nor was just forcing as much magic out as she could. Clearly, her usual method to magic was not going to work for this.

She needed Regina, who would no doubt know what to do, and hopefully offer some kisses to her poor girlfriend too. 

Actually, remembering what the villain of the week said, she needed to get to Regina quick, both to find a solution to this predicament and to warn her about being the next target. Shit, what if she was too late and Regina got shrunk too? That was not good. Henry would be without both parents and the town would probably be fucked without any magical protectors aside from  _ Gold _ . 

Thank fuck, her magic still worked. Because with magic, Emma wouldn’t have to make the perilous trek through an endless sea of grass and asphalt.

All she had to do now was poof to the Mayor’s Office. She could do that.

-

_ Fuck, she couldn’t do it. _

Instead of landing in the midst of Regina’s office. She found herself…. at Granny’s? Emma groaned. How the hell had she poofed to the diner instead? Well, okay, maybe she’d been thinking about her poor bear claw, when her stomach had reminded her that she hadn’t been able to take a single bite out of it. Still! 

_ Ugh _ . Regina always made poofing look so damn easy. But it was not as easy as it seemed, okay?  _ Especially _ when you were only one inch tall. Not for the first time, Emma cursed her bad luck. 

Why did magic have to be so complicated? They always made it look so damn easy in the movies, she thought, grumbling to herself. 

-

It took two more tries, but finally,  _ finally _ , by some miracle, Emma managed to make it to the Mayor’s Office, appearing in a tired heap on the floor just in front of her desk.

By which point, the poor woman looked like she’d just been through a war. Her clothes were all torn and tattered. She was covered head to toe in dirt, rubble and all sorts of substances she tried very hard not to decipher. There were also plenty of scratches all over her body, and she was bleeding from several places. 

Actually, she was making the marble floors of the office pretty dirty, which Regina was not going to be happy about. Though her tiny size meant that she was really only making a very tiny section of the floor dirty. That was one positive, she supposed. 

Emma would just use magic to fix all these issues but poofing so many times in a row, for such long distances—because they were basically the equivalent of crossing an ocean now that she was this tiny—had taken a lot out of her. 

Though she was dimly aware that she was working on a time limit, most of her was a bit too busy just trying to catch her breath while she flopped like a fish on the ground. 

Just another day in Storybrooke, indeed. 


	2. Chapter 2

Eventually, Emma had managed to regain enough of her strength to shakily get up on her feet and, you know, work on actually finding a solution to her situation before she ended up attacked by more horrible insects. 

While she had no doubt Regina kept her office in immaculate condition, she was now quite intimately aware of insects and their ability to conquer even the most tightly fortified defenses. She would not be underestimating the creepy crawlies ever again, after that. 

“Regina!” Emma shouted, as loud as she could, trying to get her attention. Unfortunately, with her current miniature size, this was not very loud at all. 

To Regina, there was merely a very faint sort of buzzing sound that made her frown and briefly look up around the air in search of a fly or mosquito. When nothing appeared, she shrugged it off and went back to her work. 

“Seriously?” Emma muttered incredulously. “At least look a little more! Come on, paperwork is  _ not _ that interesting.”

Then again, the mayor was always on her case about paperwork. Emma thought it was mostly just to get on her nerves, because why would someone from literally medieval times even care about stupid modern paperwork. 

But honestly, as she’d come to know Regina better, especially once they started living together, she realized that her girlfriend was really just that much of a stickler for all the order and details, including paperwork. Somehow, someway, Regina actually did seem to find paperwork  _ that _ interesting. 

Honestly, it was more terrifying than a fireball to a face. The Evil Queen should really go revisit some of her torture techniques. As Madam Mayor, she was doing a pretty damn good job of it. 

….this was a point for later though, she reminded herself. Right now, she was sort of running against a clock here. The mystery villain—she really needed to think about who she resembled, the answer was right at the tip of her tongue, honestly—could be here any second to shrink Regina.

Emma tried to think of the best way to get Regina’s attention when she was tiny as an ant.  _ Fuck, this was going to be a problem.  _ No matter how hard she screamed, her volume barely rose above the tiniest whisper to Regina. Clearly, shouting was not going to be helpful aside from letting her release some of her pent up frustration. 

Really though, the answer was pretty obvious. Emma needed to get closer. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done when you were an inch tall. 

-

This was going to take more poofing.  _ Fuck _ . Well, at least this one was a lot closer, and she had a line of sight too. Even Emma could do this.

Thankfully, her estimation of her own abilities proved to be right this time. Appearing in a flash of light, Emma landed with her slightly unsteady feet right on the piece of paper Regina was busy reading through. 

There was now a set of tiny footprints on said piece of paper, because Emma forgot she hadn’t cleaned herself yet. Oh well, whatever, magic would fix it later. At this point, Emma was just sort of over her entire day already. She just wanted it to be nighttime and cuddle with her girlfriend in their bed. 

-

“.... _ Emma? _ ” Regina’s incredulous cry was a welcome sound to poor Emma, regardless of the fact that the sheer sound pressure was enough to make her eardrums hurt like hell. 

-

Regina was having a perfectly normal Thursday morning, going through some paperwork at her office, when Emma Swan suddenly appeared upon her desk. 

In other circumstances, it might’ve been the start to some rather illicit activities that was best kept from the taxpayers’ purview, which tended to happen more frequently than she’d admit out loud. Because Emma had a rather insatiable appetite not only for grilled cheese and bear claws, it turned out. Though even she did not usually show up this early in the morning.

No, usually, this kind of early morning appearance meant yet another magical disaster in need of her expertise. Though, honestly, the fact that her girlfriend was somehow an inch tall instead of her usual barely-two-inches-at-best-taller height was a big giveaway too.

Sighing into her poor paperwork, which would now go undone, Regina asked, “Emma, what happened to you?”

The blonde’s mouth moved in response, but she heard absolutely none of it. Right, of course, she was simply too small for any sound she made to be audible to her now. Frowning, Regina mentally reviewed the spells she knew to see if any of them could return Emma to her proper size. 

Unfortunately, none of it seemed to work, as her experimental casting quickly revealed. Of course not. It was never that easy. From what she could see, whatever had caused this was  _ not _ magic, so the typical reversal spells were not going to work. 

Well, she could at least fix the sound issue for now. That one merely required a simple amplification spell. 

“... _ you hear me now?”  _ Emma’s voice suddenly cut in, the moment Regina finished casting. 

“Yes, Emma, I can hear you now.” She confirmed, before asking, “Now, what exactly happened to you?”

Emma quickly explained her encounter with the strangely familiar new villain, making sure to point out the horror of losing her poor bear claw and truly terrifying ants that she was definitely going to kill first and ask questions later from now on. 

Her girlfriend was not being very sympathetic to her plight though, as her expression had shifted from one of concern to barely concealed amusement the longer Emma’s story went on. 

“You’re laughing at me!” Emma accused, stamping a foot in indignation to further her point. At her current size, it really only made her look more hilariously adorable. 

Still, to her credit, Regina did reply with, “That sounds  _ truly _ horrible, honey.”

The thin layer of sarcasm over the words was  _ almost _ unnoticeable, though the smirk on her face and the mirth in her eyes less so. 

Emma would’ve geared up for a  _ truly _ indignant reply to this abuse, but then, she noticed something, and her brows furrowed in thought instead. 

_ Wait a minute… Honey? _

Realization hit her like a lightning strike, as faded childhood memories suddenly lit up in her mind with crystal clarity. She now knew why the man who’d attacked her seemed so familiar.  _ Of course.  _

-

In hindsight, after all the craziness in her life, Emma probably should have somehow expected this earlier. 

With basically every Disney character ever, and then some, being a part of Storybrooke somehow, Emma really should’ve started keeping a list of Disney movies to start checking things off of. It really would’ve made the investigative parts of her job as Sheriff much easier, really. 

In this hypothetical list of hers, which she was  _ definitely _ going to start writing at some point—like, right after this latest  _ ridiculous _ magical mishap, and she’d even fill this out before the paperwork, regardless of Regina’s protests—once she jotted down all the animated canon, she’d move onto live-action films. Somewhere on that list, there’d be the movie:

_ Honey, I Shrunk The Kids _

Truly, a childhood classic. One of Emma’s favorite movies, really. She had fond memories of watching it on the old TV at one of the better foster homes she’d been in. 

In this hypothetical scenario, wherein past Emma was responsible enough to have finished this list long before now, she would be taking that list out of her pocket right now, and placing a great big check next to the box for  _ Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. _

-

“I know who it is!” Emma announced excitedly. “It’s  _ Honey, I Shrunk The Kids!  _ The man who attacked me looked exactly like the guy from the movie! _ ” _

Regina merely frowned, an obvious look of incomprehension on her face. “What?” 

Undeterred, Emma quickly gave a not entirely faithful retelling of the movie’s plot based on her memories. She may or may not have mixed up part of the plot with that one movie (Life-Sized, she would later realize, after some googling) with Tyra Banks, where she was a doll that became a real woman. 

At some point, Emma should probably go ahead and rewatch all the movies on that list of hers, because clearly, merely relying on her old memories was not going to be enough. But then then again, it wasn’t like any of this was actually following the plot of the movie, so, in all honesty, knowing the movie wasn’t really that helpful. 

When did anything ever just follow the movie, in Storybrooke, after all?

Emma wouldn’t even be born, at that point. Nor would Henry. He definitely wouldn’t have been raised by someone who was also technically his step-great-grandmother. They definitely wouldn’t be dating, considering it would sort of be incest, which was entirely the wrong genre for that. 

In any case, needless to say, her girlfriend, who was also technically her step-grandmother, if you wanted to split hairs about it, was more confused than enlightened by Emma’s less than stellar explanation. Nonetheless, she seemed to get the gist of the concept, which really, was already explained in the title itself.

She was also about ten steps ahead as usual, as she realized who they were dealing with. 

“I think I also know who you are talking about.” Regina said slowly, admitting, “Or, at least, this  _ ‘shrink ray _ ’ is familiar to me and he would have reason to want revenge against me.”

It turned out that, like every other time, the bubbling inventor dad from the movie was actually yet another villain who had some kind of complicated backstory with someone in this town, namely, the Evil Queen. He was your typical mad scientist, ala Whale, but more successful with his experiments. 

Wayne Szalinski from the movie was actually Walter Sellman, more known simply as The Inventor, and he’d come up with all sorts of mad inventions aside from the shrink ray, though that happened to be his most impressive work. Much like the film, he’d managed to shrink his children with it. Unlike the film, he’d done it  _ on purpose _ . When his wife had found out and objected, he’d shrunk her too. Then, he kept them all in a tiny house, like they were merely tiny dolls for him to play with. 

“...that’s fucking creepy,” Emma noted with a shudder.

“It was worse to see it up close.” Regina agreed as she recalled with a shake of her head, “He loved to show it off to his guests. Admittedly, it was a great proof of work.”

Emma frowned. “Seriously?” Not to sound judgemental, but, well, this dude was definitely crossing some kind of moral event horizon by keeping his family like his tiny dolls, and her girlfriend’s lack of reaction was a bit worrying. 

While Regina couldn’t see the blonde’s expression very well at the moment, she could guess from the tone. She winced a little, admitting with a familiar look of guilt she often wore when speaking of her days as the Evil Queen, “I… Well, I’m ashamed to say, while I did find him rather distasteful, to say the least, I was rather too far gone at that point to care about anything aside from getting what I wanted from him.”

All she wanted was his inventions, which he’d been rather reluctant to part with, despite his enthusiasm about showing them off. Being the Evil Queen, she had not taken no for an answer, and with magic on her side, she’d been able to easily take what she wanted. 

More than anything, it was the fact that, despite his inventive genius, he was basically a bumbling idiot who was not too far from his movie counterpart after all. Well, you know, aside from part where he shrunk his family on purpose to turn them into his little dolls. 

“I was able to turn them back to normal size with one of my potions. To be honest, it was mostly as a petty act of revenge for him daring to refuse me. But it was a net good action in the end, at least.” Regina added in defense of her past self, before giving a smirk that definitely didn’t seem good. “I heard they enacted their own revenge and shrunk him, after that.”

Emma laughed too. “Yeah, you were a  _ good _ Evil Queen deep down, weren’t you?” 

“Anyway, the point is, I don’t think he’ll be a problem.” Regina concluded.

“Really?” Emma asked incredulously, gesturing to herself and her currently tiny form. 

Regina rolled her eyes. “If you hadn’t been so distracted by a  _ pastry _ and had even an ounce of magical instinct in you, it would’ve been child’s play to disable him before he used the ‘shrink ray’ on you.”

Emma pouted, feeling a need to defend herself and her admittedly poor reaction. “It was a very delicious bear claw.

“In a straight fight, he’s no match for magic, regardless of his inventions. Honestly, he’s even less of a threat than Whale. I suspect the only reason he’s attacked now is because he’s just stumbled onto the Land Without Magic and hasn’t realized I have magic here.” Regina speculated. 

_ Still _ . Emma pointed out. “Seriously, I have no idea when he’s going to come for you. It’d be best if I were, you know, normal sized by then, so we could take him down together.”

At Emma’s shockingly sensible words, Regina could only concede the point, giving a fond smile as she agreed. “Fair enough. We are stronger together, after all.”


	3. Chapter 3

It was a very unusual sensation to be able to literally hold your girlfriend up by your hand, but Regina certainly managed admirably, her lips only twitching into an amused smirk a few times. It took some careful handling to make sure she didn’t accidentally squeeze too hard. 

“C-careful with those f-fingers!” Emma squealed, and Regina resisted the urge to make a “that’s what she said” joke. Clearly, she’d been spending too much time around the blonde. Her sense of humor was disturbingly infectious it seemed. 

In any case, Emma being rather ticklish was rather unfortunate, as was the way she tended to squirm once she did get ticklish. It all made it rather hard to hold her carefully. All in all, it was the sort of ridiculous comedy of errors that seemed rather characteristic of her life ever since Emma Swan entered it. 

By the time, Regina poofed them to her vault and she let her tiny girlfriend go onto the table there, she was gasping with a mixture of tears and laughter, her face quite red. Standing quite gigantic over her, Regina was a mixture of exasperation and amusement, with a pinch of concern thrown in, at any possible injuries she might’ve caused by holding her too hard. 

“I know you are currently tinier than a child at the moment, but there is no need to act like one.” Regina said pointedly.

Glaring from where she was currently in a heap on the table, Emma replied even more pointedly, “Just get the potion, _please_.”

Unfortunately, Regina didn’t have any more the potion she used still in stock, but she knew how to make more, so it was just a matter of gathering the ingredients, which were thankfully all easily found in stocks. After that, it was just a matter of brewing it.

The two of them were in Regina’s vault, where the brunette was the very picture of a stereotypical witch, mixing some strangely colored brew in a cauldron, except her cauldron was only the size of a golf ball, and her magical familiar of sorts was a tiny shrunken Emma, who was watching on, transfixed. 

Eventually, they reached the final step of the potion, which involved waiting to let it stew. Somehow that was supposed to make it more powerful or something, Emma wasn’t entirely sure. It seemed not even the fate of having her return normal size could force her to listen to a magical lesson carefully. 

Anyway, with a solution brewing and a plan in place, which was mostly just “use magic on him before he attacks”, there was little else for them to do. So, it seemed Regina now felt free to unleash all the teasing quips she’d clearly been holding back on. This part Emma wasn’t so pleased about. 

“You know, you’re pretty cute like this,” Regina noted, a smirk on her face.

“Seriously?” Emma raised an incredulous brow, refusing to let the blush that wanted to rise out. She failed, and flushed a little pink despite her best efforts not to. 

“Maybe we should just keep you all cute and pocket-sized like this.” 

Emma pouted. “I know you’re just teasing, but please don’t joke about that. I just barely escaped very traumatic experience with some ants, you know.”

Regina merely laughed, clearly not appreciating the gravity of her experience. Alas, the glare she leveled at her was all too easy dismissed as being about as intimidating as a pussycat. “You know, I admit I thought it was distasteful before, but I think I’m beginning to understand the appeal in turning his family into this size, after all. You’re just so _cute_ like this.”

“No, Regina! Not okay! Not cute!” Emma objected fiercely. “This is _creepy!_ Don’t relate to the creepy dude!”

Alas, her objections barely seemed to register. The distracting adorable sight of her like this had Regina petting at her head with a finger, which was now large as her entire head, all while cooing at her as she would’ve with a baby, “You need to accept yourself, dear. You _are_ just too _cute_ like this.”

“Ugh, stop it!” Emma slapped the finger away, which was completely ineffective, but Regina at least did her the favor of pretending it worked and drew her hand away, even as she smirked in amusement. “If you’re just going to keep being like this, instead of _helping_ , I’m going to leave!” 

Regina was hardly threatened though. Rolling her eyes, she merely pointed out, with a laugh, “And who exactly would you go to? Your parents? Our son? Rumple?”

Each choice seemed worse than the last, which said something, considering all the choices involved members of their family. As usual, Regina was annoyingly right. Emma was simply going to have to suffer through the teasing, because she literally had no better options at this point. 

Besides, to be honest, if this had happened to anyone else, Emma probably would’ve laughed. Hell, if their positions were reversed right now, she knew she’d be mercilessly teasing the fuck out of Regina. 

So, maybe this was some kind of preemptive karma, then. Or maybe Fate just liked to screw with her, as per usual. Whatever the case, it wasn’t like she had a leg to stand on about it. Still, Emma was nothing if not stubborn, pouting even more as she asked annoyedly. “Whatever. Is the potion still not ready yet?”

“No.” Regina said simply, but there was a certain air about her that made Emma’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. After a beat, the other woman smirked. “Alright, you caught me. It was ready a few minutes ago.”

“Damnit, Regina!” The blonde swore. However, her girlfriend merely laughed. Before Emma could get too angry about the deception though, a bear claw suddenly appeared in a burst of purple mist. 

“Now dear, tell me, would you prefer to eat this at your current size or at your normal one?” The smug look on her face said she clearly knew what the answer would be. Emma couldn’t even be annoyed at it. Not when there was a gigantic bear claw in front of her that she was all too eager to eat. Her stomach growled in agreement.

Without bothering to answer the obvious question, Emma all but literally jumped into the bear claw like it was a pool full of gold and she was Scrooge McDuck. This was even better and much more delicious than all the gold in the world.

An unknown amount of time later, Emma’s stomach was full to bursting and she was only maybe halfway through the gigantic pastry. 

“My belly feels like it’s going to burst.” She groaned out. “I think I’m gonna puke.”

Regina looked somewhere between amusement and disgust. “I feel a little queasy myself after seeing that display.

-

Emma eagerly drank the potion, only to nearly spit it out when she discovered it somehow tasted like old shoes that had been sweetened with cherry liqueur. With a grimace, she forced herself to swallow the terrible concoction and thankfully managed not to puke after.

“Gods, why do potions taste so terrible?” She complained as she glanced at the half-eaten bear claw. 

“Probably so people don’t mistakenly drink it.” Regina answered with a more sensible answer than she expected. Honestly, she was sort of expecting it had been just to torture her a litle more. 

“Oh.” Emma said, for lack of a better reaction, before shrugging it off. “Good point, I guess.” 

“Not that it stops certain idiots from doing so anyway.” Regina clearly couldn’t resist adding. 

“That was _one time!_ ” She immediately shot back, adding indignantly, “I learned my lesson after that!”

Regina nodded agreeably. “And they say idiots can’t learn.” 

“Well, you’re the one who decided to shack up with this idiot, so what does it say about you?” Emma asked petulantly. 

“That idiocy is unfortunately contagious.” 

Before Emma could reply, with a devastating comeback that would make even the Evil Queen bow down, however, she found herself quite distracted by her suddenly expanding body. 

It was slightly painful, though mostly just uncomfortable. Still, she was thankful when it stopped. She was less thankful once she realized she had only grown a little taller than before.

In hindsight, Emma should’ve been paying a bit more attention when Regina was explaining how the potion worked. 

It turned out that it would not return her to her normal size, but would merely keep making her grow twice her current size every minute until she drank the potion a second time to stop it. 

“Oh. So, like Alice in Wonderland?” Emma concluded. 

With a furrow in her brow, Regina hummed thoughtfully. “I’m not entirely certain if my mother used it during her reign there, but the potion did come from her spellbooks.”

“...right. I somehow keep forgetting Cora was the Queen of Hearts from Wonderland.” Emma shook her head, wondering how her life had reached a point where such a sentence actually made sense to her. “We’ve really got to work on a chart at some point.”

“Please, do finish your paperwork for the Sheriff’s Office first.” The mayor reminded her with a raised brow. Much as her libido appreciated that look, she didn’t appreciate the reminder. 

Emma grimaced, thinking of the paperwork that had been put off in favor of this latest villainous threat. “What’s the use of all this magic if it won’t do paperwork for you?”

-

“Hm, I take it back. You’re much cuter at this size, I think. Still cute but much more huggable.” Regina noted, after a few minutes had passed and Emma had reached about her waist height. “Just like Henry was a few years ago.” She added wistfully.

“Hey, maybe we can use the shrink ray on him,” Emma suggested, with an all too eager grin, considering what she was suggesting. Perhaps her stint as the Dark One had changed her irrevocably, after all. “We could even combine it with the potion so he can reach just the right size!” 

Regina looked entirely too ready to agree, as her eyes lit up with some of the Evil Queen’s madness, as she praised. “Not a bad idea, Emma. We’ll have to test it a bit more to make sure it’s safe, but this way, you’ll finally get to see just how tiny Henry was at that age with your own eyes.”

“Aww, babe,” Emma felt a little teary-eyed at the thoughtfulness. The memories she’d received from the other woman years ago had been nice, but definitely not the same as seeing it herself. “I love you.”

“I love you too, dear.” Regina replied, hugging Emma, who was, for once, the (much) shorter one. It was nice, but she had to admit, that she did enjoy their regular hugs more.

-

Thankfully, after a few more minutes of accelerated growth, Emma soon managed to reach her normal height. Or, well, something close to it, anyay. 

The blonde suspected she was perhaps an inch or two shorter than before—no doubt part of her girlfriend’s underhanded plot to make sure Emma was no longer the taller one in the relationship—but she had little choice at this point unless she wanted to be twice as tall in the next minute.

“Ugh, I’m starting to consider just growing infinitely if it means I wouldn’t have to drink this again.” She grumbled, eying the bottle in her hand dubiously. “Come on, can’t you magic it to taste better?”

“If you do, we’re breaking up.” Regina said with zero hesitation. “And using magic on that potion now would affect its properties adversely.” 

“You could at least pretend to think about it a little.” Emma huffed, before deciding to just take the plunge and chugged the potion like a shot, wincing quite dramatically all the while. 

Ugh, she wished she had something to drown out the taste of the potion. Then, she realized she did, eying the remains of her bear claw with new, hungry eyes.

“Really, dear? Didn’t you say your stomach was about to burst not ten minutes ago?”

“That was when the bear claw was bigger than me! Now there’s basically like one bite left.” Emma argued, before popping the entirety of the remaining pastry in her mouth like a chipmunk. 

It was at this point, with the signature horrible timing of a true terrible fairy tale villain, that Walter Sellman showed up. He was brandishing his shrink ray like a prized trophy, and smirking arrogantly. It looked like he’d taken his cues from cartoon villainy and was about to twirl a non-existent moustache at some point. Needless to say, he was about as intimidating as a cartoon. 

“The Evil Queen! I have finally found you!” 

Regina looked completely unphased. With an ominous smirk on her lips that proved she was still a better villain even if she was technically reformed now, Regina asked him, “Don’t you mean ‘us’?”

“Wait, the Sheriff?! But I shrunk you!” His look of shock was comical. 

“Yeah, and I got unshrunk. It’s called magic!” Emma told him, before sending a magical blast that sent him flying back. “That’s for the bear claw you made me drop! And the ants!” 

Rolling her eyes at her girlfriend’s antics, Regina merely waved her hand, and the shrink ray was now in her hands. Another wave had him contained in chains. 

_Well, that was easy,_ Emma noted, feeling a little put out and embarrassed that she had not been able to do the same. She had magic too after all. But in her defense she had caught her off-guard! What kind of horrible monster attacked someone who was busy eating a delicious pastry? 

Honestly, the guy had clearly just gotten lucky. Even Emma would’ve been able to handle him on her own normally. Though he initially seemed quite different from his portrayal in the movie, he was clearly the bumbling idiot type after all. Clearly unaware of this, however, he protested, “W-what?! But this is the Land Without Magic! My plan was perfect!” 

Regina’s earlier assessment had hit the nail on the head, apparently. 

“Dude, this is _Storybrooke_. The one place with magic. How did you not come across that in all your research?” Emma asked, as she magically poofed them to the Sheriff’s Station, where she cuffed him and left him in the holding cell. 

In the end, it was all rather anticlimactic. Barely worth a mention in Henry’s big ol storybook, honestly. Though that was probably for the best, considering how badly the Saviour came off in this tale. 

“Well, I see you’ve got this handled now. I’ll be returning to my office, then,” Regina concluded, distastefully eying Wayne Sellman’s increasingly hysterical protestations from within his cell. She turned to Emma, reminding her, “Don’t forget your paperwork. It’s still due tomorrow.” 

“Oh, come on! Don’t I get an extension after everything that happened?” Emma pouted, voice coming dangerously close to a whine. 

“Magical mishap clause, Sheriff.” Regina reminded her. “Tomorrow is already an extension. It was originally due today. Good luck, dear. I’ll see you tonight.”

With that, she disappeared in a cloud of purple smoke, leaving Emma to grumble about her paperwork, while The Inventor continued to rant in the background. 

All in all, just another ordinary Thursday in Storybrooke.

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: I’m currently unemployed, and doing art & writing commissions while I look for work. Please DM me on twitter/IG/tumblr @kahlen369 for any inquiries <3


End file.
